Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Winter’ Category

Tapping Out

Posted in +Uncategorized, Maple Syrup, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2013 | 11 Comments »

(A new tab at the top of this page (or this link) will take you to a collection of photos and links following the production of maple syrup this spring from the sugar bush of some friends. Their new enterprise is called Bobo’s Mountain Sugar, and the taps are in on Bobo’s Mountain — all 2500 of them.)

In mixed martial arts, tapping out is an act of submission, the end of a fight, and often the result of a violent twisting of arms. In maple syrup production, tapping out is a declaration of victory, the end of a job that no one’s arm had to be twisted to do.

big old tree

The snow was deep when I started helping on the hill above the sugar house, but I waded and floundered and stomped my way along the lines, tapping trees for a few hours each afternoon, doing what I could. The steepness of the hill, combined with thickets of beech and short balsams, had me convinced I made the right call in leaving my snowshoes at home, even as more flakes fell every day. After struggling in the wake of an additional 14+” from one storm, I finally gave in and strapped them on the next day.

If, as they say, snowshoes make the impossible difficult, it was a very hard afternoon. Without my snowshoes I had sunk to my knees; with them I still sank to my knees and had to high-step to clear the holes I’d made, with the decks weighted down with snow. Lifting a leg, expecting 25 pounds of resistance but getting none because the snow slid off, resulted in a few sharp blows to my chin and twice I kneed myself in the ear when my right foot sank deeper as I lifted my left. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Another Nice Day to Live in Vermont

Posted in Maple Syrup, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2013 | 14 Comments »

More than a foot of snow snuck in the first part of this week, in the form of several small batches, so when Wednesday’s already grim Winter Storm Warning included the words “locally higher totals possible” it was a good bet Fish in a Barrel Pond would get its fair share.

100_7457

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Quill Gordon Does a Tap Dance

Posted in Maple Syrup, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2013 | 12 Comments »

I awoke this morning to two terrible realizations. First, it was nearly half-past six, meaning I’d slept in like a slug. Second, it was Monday, and the return of Flashback Friday had faltered after only two weeks, despite my good intentions.

crying-angler

Yeah, yeah, I know. I can just feel the disappointment, but it’s not like you just found a leak in your waders or something. Besides, proper flashbacks should be unexpected, out of the blue, and a complete surprise to all involved.

My most recent post featured some mighty rugged poop and, while not a flashback, certainly was unexpected, out of the blue, and a complete surprise to all involved. The books could use some balancing after that, starting with this post, beginning with a nice photo of a stream:

stream

Living in Vermont, fisher scat is as much a part of late winter as maple syrup, and I hope that if anything can make up for posting the scariest poop ever, maple syrup will. I like maple syrup so much that I have jumped at the chance to help some friends through the process. (more…)

Read Full Post »

“Channeling Natty Bumppo” or, “Quill Gordon Knows Sh*t”

Posted in nature, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2013 | 16 Comments »

Fair Warning: There will be no replacing of letters with asterisks beyond this point! There are also three photos of interesting, strangely hairy poop in this post. Tolerant, indulgent readers who make it to the end will be rewarded with a few pretty pictures of ice.

Once, long ago, I sat in a tavern with some coworkers, sipping root beer and swapping stories. A man at the end of the bar to my right squinted at me and slurred, “Hey! You don’t know shit!”

This was unfortunate because if he had been seated to my left he would have seen the patch on my sleeve signifying employment at the local zoological park and indicating what was actually an intimate and far superior knowledge of shit. Not realizing what he was in for, he wiggled his index finger and taunted me once more. “You don’t know shit!” he exclaimed.

“As a matter of fact,” I began, hitching up my uniform pants as I stood, “I do know shit.” I then proceeded to recite every term for shit I could think of, from spoor and sign to crap and beyond. I told about finding peacock feathers in elephant shit and the defensive defecation of large pythons but I didn’t get a chance to expound on the eucalyptus-laced dung of koalas or the flung-poo antics of monkeys because the man at the bar staggered over and cut me off.

Actually, he cut off my air by punching me in the throat, but that is not the point. The point is that I am neither surprised nor particularly bothered when someone leaves a message on the answering machine telling me they found some very interesting, strangely hairy poop in the woods and that it was such interesting, strangely hairy poop that they felt compelled to carry a large sample of said poop to my porch, leaving it on an overturned bucket, cradled by a lichen-covered tree branch.

Feces of a fisher

There are those among us who would take one look at this strangely hairy poop and say, “Them’s Sasquatch turds, for sure,” but they would be wrong. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Where The Storms Have No Names

Posted in nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2013 | 14 Comments »

The Weather Channel (not the National Weather Service) has decided that winter storms need names, in the same way hurricanes and typhoons need names. Blizzards and hurricanes don’t care what they are called but evidently TV producers feel their coverage is more compelling if we are able to somehow humanize dangerous meteorological phenomena, which is interesting because effective propaganda generally dehumanizes the enemy.

We humans name all kinds of stuff that need not be named, and I myself admit to the occasional anthropomorphic fit. A chicken I called “Tiny” was snatched away by a bear last spring and I once knew a tapir we called “Jim” because it was easier than saying “ear tag #P379″ but the closest I’ve come to naming weather would have to be “that awful cold snap in ’92″ or “the huge freakin’ blizzard during lambing in ’05.”

This most recent storm was given a TV name and many people will use it when they look back on this historic nor’easter. They got hammered and maybe it will help to have a name to shout as they shake their fists at the sky, but step away from the news and the roads and the towns and it was just more wind and snow.

100_7353

(more…)

Read Full Post »

On the Inside, Looking Out

Posted in nature, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 27, 2013 | 9 Comments »

100_7287

Embrace it, endure it, or leave. Winter doesn’t offer many choices and for the better part of this past week the best option has been to endure, hunker down and hope for the best.

100_7284

The sun shines brightly, through a lens of frigid arctic air, but the wind cuts like a razor and going out to do chores is, at best, a chore. Numbers on thermometers tell incomplete tales, unfeeling statements of fact, and over the years I have developed my own crude methodology to quantify cold. Completely unscientific and more than a bit subjective, it involves such things as the speed at which boogers freeze and the distance I can travel across the dooryard before I find myself doubled over and cussing. Based on those measurements, the cold this week qualifies as “pretty darn freakin’.”

100_7286

It’s also darn freakin’ pretty.

100_7289

After six days of hiding indoors, there’s an urge to go out, not so much to embrace the season as to defy it, so when the full moon comes up the armor goes on for a trek in the moonlight. Among popping trees and over thumping ice, coyotes howl and wind-blown snow sparkles like diamonds but after a couple of hours of that nonsense, there’s a serious urge to go in and embrace the stove.

The mixed flock of chickadees, nuthatches, and redpolls have been working the feeders through the cold. The seed they knock to the ground feeds mice and voles, which a pair of coyotes has discovered, but most other creatures in the neighborhood spent the week curled up in a hole, trying to stay warm, just like me.

Just like me, they’re also ready to get out again and this morning I saw a fox trotting down the road, looking ahead for a meal while also looking back, aware that it could just as easily become someone else’s meal. Everyone is hungry out there, after a deep snap like this, and the search for food goes on for as long as it takes. The fox risks death, taking what the coyotes consider theirs, and night creatures will work all day if that’s what it takes to survive.

100_7294

With coffee in hand, I sat in my blind (which is cleverly disguised as a house) and watched a flying squirrel this morning, a rare treat. Both shy and nocturnal, I can count the flying squirrels I’ve seen on two fingers. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ice Out!

Posted in nature, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , on March 23, 2012 | 11 Comments »

Fish in a Barrel Pond, March 22, 2012, 6:30 p.m.:

Fish in a Barrel Pond, March 23, 2012, 6:30 a.m.:

An early riser:

 

Read Full Post »

A Story of Life and Death, Written in Snow (19 Photos)

Posted in nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2012 | 20 Comments »

(Important Disclaimer: There are places where ice forms many feet thick and travel on frozen lakes is perfectly safe for a good part of the season. In other places, especially during a winter like this one, ice conditions can change from day to day, even hour to hour.

The strengthening sun creates soft spots as melt water collects in the dips between expansion cracks, and a route that was safe in the morning merits a second look after lunch. Faint tracks mark yesterday’s trail, which puddled up and froze over last night, leaving a thin veneer over a foot of nothing but slush and at least a bracing dunk.

If asked, Quill Gordon will tell you no ice is safe, but if you do find yourself crossing a frozen lake, check ice thickness often and be aware of changing conditions.)

¦¦¦¦¦

An overnight skiff of snow on the ice is like a clean slate. Any tracks or other signs of activity I see are recent, laid down only hours before my morning rounds. Otters, mink and squirrels are common, and I saw the tracks of a fisher cat last week but, far and away, the most common tracks I come across are those of coyotes.

It’s the time for pairing off and denning up, asserting dominance and proving worth, and the coyotes have been plenty active. Most are travelling in pairs, but a big, lone male has also been out and about.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

They Call Me Mr. Sandy Pants

Posted in nature, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , on February 5, 2012 | 7 Comments »

After a week that consisted largely of time spent lugging sand bags as cold winter water took an unauthorized route downhill, it was nice this afternoon to sit on a rock and watch the water go where it was supposed to.

With a little telephoto action, the area below the spillway of Fish in a Barrel Pond is what you might call a picture-rich environment. (more…)

Read Full Post »

As Long as Winter Holds Its Breath

Posted in nature, Vermont, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 19, 2012 | 15 Comments »

Clear arctic air came screaming in from the north this week, riding a penetrating, relentless wind. A swirl of damp, mild air made a brief appearance, a lost visitor from warmer climes, but it was quickly torn to shreds, squeezed dry by winter’s cold bony hands, and sent back southward with a mighty blast. For hours and hours the wind blew until, somewhere in the middle of the night (it’s hard to know exactly when because the power was out), it stopped.

The fullest, deepest, coldest part of the season was here and, in the morning, it seemed to be resting. Not a breeze stirred. The sun shined bright but the blue sky was deceptive — it was cold out there. I usually say it ain’t cold if your boogers ain’t froze, but I didn’t feel like actually checking myself. I did notice, though, as I drank my coffee and watched the birds at the feeders, that a little puff of steam came out every time a blue jay pooped and that’s good enough for me.

With surface temperatures matching that of the still air, at well below zero (that would be well below zero to our metric friends), and the extra moisture left behind by that silly warm front, there was only one appropriate thing to do.

I got dressed, went out, and looked for frost.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 120 other followers